


so you can love a little darker

by skvadern



Category: The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: Age Difference, Dubious Consent, Dubious Consentacles, Fear Play, M/M, Overstimulation, Power Imbalance, Sensory Deprivation, Tentacles, The Dark, Trans Jonah Magnus, Triple Penetration, cosmic horror vibes, i commit sentence crimes in the name of historical accuracy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-20
Updated: 2020-06-20
Packaged: 2021-03-04 05:01:01
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,867
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24758203
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/skvadern/pseuds/skvadern
Summary: “Sweet, inquisitive little thing - don’t you want to learn a little more?”A young Jonah Magnus makes the acquaintance of Maxwell Rayner, and immediately finds himself in over his head.
Relationships: Jonah Magnus/Maxwell Rayner
Comments: 18
Kudos: 114
Collections: Jonah Magnus Week 2020





	so you can love a little darker

**Author's Note:**

> the jonah server are all fucking enablers. happy maxwell rayner day - just! by 15 mins! - and praise be to the forever blind.  
> the words breasts, cock and cunt are used for jonahs kit. author is a trans guy.  
> title from dark bloom by amber run bc of fucking course

The house is full of well-dressed men, all of them Jonah’s senior. Such a sight might have intimidated one of his more timid peers, but Jonah Magnus holds his head high and follows Robert into the throng with no hesitation.

The rooms they pass through are well-furnished, if with a strangely dark colour scheme, and each one is full of the most fascinating objects. Several times, Jonah almost loses Robert by stopping to inspect a statuette, or a fine item of furniture, or a shelf of books in more languages than Jonah even recognises. Robert had said their host was an antiquities dealer, which may explain some of the distracting finery. The pieces Jonah’s eye falls upon certainly do look antique to a one.

When they enter the drawing room, Robert leads him over to where a tall, stately black man stands, holding court amongst a group of admirers. The figure immediately draws Jonah’s eye, and not simply due to the solid black and white of his fine clothes, or the rarity of seeing a man darker than a Mediterranean tan at one of these high-society gatherings. There is something about the way he carries himself, utter self-possession in every motion, even in stillness. Even at a glance, Jonah can tell this is the sort of man he has always envied; someone who has never once doubted his place in the world, and his right to fill it.

When Robert calls “Maxwell?” and the man turns towards them, Jonah blinks in surprise. The eyes that land in the direction of Robert’s voice are as fogged as a moor on an autumn morning, so opaque they must be sightless.

“Jonah,” Robert says with a smile, “allow me to introduce our host, and my good friend, Maxwell Rayner.”

The man himself holds out a hand, and Jonah takes it. “Jonah Magnus?” he enquires in a deep, rich voice that Jonah already finds pleasant. “Is this the young man you spoke so highly of, Robert?”

“It is indeed,” Robert replies, avoiding Jonah’s sharp look with irritating ease. “Finally graduated and set up in London, free to enjoy the benefits of society in a town not packed with students.”

“Students, gentlemen,” Jonah replies, sawing a hand with a smirk, “I find no appreciable difference.”

To his well-hidden delight, Maxwell snorts. “Evidently then, young man, you are consorting with the wrong sort of gentleman.”

“Or the right sort,” Jonah retorts, “depending on one’s taste. Though I will confess, until I integrated myself into Robert’s circle, I was quite starved of intelligent conversation.”

“A disadvantage of consorting with the right sort of gentleman,” Maxwell replies. “Thankfully, you are here, and we can rectify this.”

“Thankfully,” Jonah replies, and the smile that Maxwell sends in his direction is pleasant enough to sent the slightest spark into his core. Oh, he is glad that Robert introduced them, especially when Rayner turns his back on his companions and directs his attention fully to Jonah.

“So,” he says, “Robert tells me you have some small interest in matters… outside the normal, shall we say.”

Jonah shoots another sharp glance in Robert’s direction, but this one bounces off just as easily, and Robert makes quiet excuses and slips back into the crowd before Jonah can press. Honestly, Jonah blames his wife; a wonderfully sharp woman who would teach any husband miraculous powers of ignorance and invisibility. “I do,” he replies. “It fascinates me, the things so-called rational men are unwilling to lend credence to, when they are far more provably real than the scientific phenomena they pour over.”

“So you do not lend credence to science?” Rayner enquires archly, an elegant eyebrow raised.

“Mr Rayner,” Jonah replies, allowing his smile to bleed into his tone, “I have no quarrel with science – in fact, I follow the progress of such learned fellows most avidly. It is just that I place no boundaries on what discipline I choose study. Simply put, I wish to learn _everything_.”

Rayner’s smile matches his own, and the man begins to walk towards an unoccupied settee, gesturing for Jonah to join him. For a blind man, he navigates the room very well – but then, this is his drawing room, and the men filling it move out of his path easily. “An admirable goal, Mr Magnus,” he replies over his shoulder. “Admirable indeed, though perhaps foolish.”

Jonah strides to keep pace with him, only just restraining himself from bouncing on the balls of his feet. “How so?” he enquires when they are seated.

Rayner settles into the cushions as though they were a throne, and gestures absently with the head of his ebony cane. In moments a servant appears with a tray of glasses, offering one to Jonah and passing another into Rayners outstretched hand. “Foolish,” Rayner continues once the servant departs, “in that many civilisations, including this one, agree that some knowledge either cannot or should not be acquired by mortal minds.”

“And many civilisations, including this one, have believed that the Earth is a flat disk, and that particularly effective local midwives serve the Devil,” Jonah replies. “Men can be so very close-minded, and I do not believe that this is indicative of some deep truth of human nature.”

Rayner’s eyes are too fogged to glitter, but his entire face is cast in delight. “Mr Magnus,” he declares, “I believe we both have much to say to one another. Now, tell me, have you read-“

~~~~~

Their conversation comes to a natural break, one Rayner uses to take a sip of his drink, and Jonah uses to flick his eyes around the room. To his shock, it is almost empty. He remembers vaguely Robert making his excuses some time ago – how long, he cannot rightly say – and can faintly recall a litany of guests bidding farewell to their host, so it is not as if everyone has somehow been spirited away, no. The faint thrill of apprehension is simply his a product of his mind, a little hazy from drink. A great deal hazier from some of the subjects they have discussed, he and Maxwell Rayner.

Christ, but the man is a veritable encyclopaedia – except, no, an encyclopaedia simply catalogues knowledge, and Rayner is a good deal more than a simple catalogue. Rayner’s intelligence and charisma runs deep through his every word, a rich undercurrent that had drawn Jonah into their conversation as a soul lost underground draws towards a lamp.

It is so rare, that Jonah meets somebody with that rare mixture of qualities – both intelligent and open-minded. A man on his level.

The last of the guests, two men who Jonah only vaguely recalls, come over to say their farewells. Jonah joins Rayner in his goodbye absently, head still feeling a little full, as if he has somehow gorged on the conversation with his new acquaintance. Then they leave together, and Jonah and Rayner are alone.

Completely alone, Jonah observes. The servants appear to have departed as well, leaving only the two of them in the drawing room.

Rayner turns towards him, and Jonah is somehow, irrationally, certain that the man knows he was just scanning the room. “And what of you, Mr Magnus, will you be leaving me soon? Surely, night has fallen by now.”

Something about the way Rayner says that last makes the little hairs on the back of Jonah’s neck rise to attention. A part of him wishes to dismiss the sensation, to dive back into their discourse. But Jonah Magnus has not spent so many years digging into the darker recesses of this world to ignore his animal instincts. Fear, he knows well, is more intelligent than most men’s rational minds, and whichever part of his mind creates it knows, _knows_ , that Maxwell Rayner is not all he seems. Not an outlandish speculation, when one is a friend of Robert Smirke, and more than a little troubling.

And yet. And yet Jonah so badly wishes to learn more, to speak more with this singularly fascinating man. And this would not be the first time he has done something unwise in the pursuit of knowledge - he has ever been too curious for his own good.

“If you are still willing to host me,” he says softly, gaze fixed coyly on the dark liquid in his glass, no matter that Rayner cannot see where his eyes focus, “then I am more than willing to stay a while longer.”

“Excellent,” Rayner replies, and the smile that emerges from his neatly trimmed beard is wide and slow and just a little wicked. “I did hope you would say that. I find myself enjoying your company, Mr Magnus.”

Jonah flicks his eyes up to that smile, and tries to remember what Robert had related to him on the subject of Maxwell Rayner. Robert has never been in the habit of plainly discussing the preferences of himself and his circle, not even among those he knows are trustworthy, and Jonah does not believe his friend has mentioned who Rayner might like to take to bed. Still, he can sense a certain quality to their interactions. That strange, elusive thread of kinship.

“Please, Mr Rayner,” he says, allowing his smile to come into his voice, “call me Jonah.”

A satisfied smile tucks itself away at the corners of Rayner’s lips. “In that case, you must call me Maxwell.”

They dip easily back into their conversation – discussing the myths of some of the ancient civilisations Rayner has been researching – but the spell has been partially broken, and time and time again Jonah feels his eyes straying. Empty of guests, of light and sound and the brightness of a party, the room has… altered. When leaving, the servants must have put out all but a few candles – and why not, when their master has no need of them? – leaving the room lit only faintly by small puddles of amber light. Lamplight and moonlight from the street shines in through the window, and the drawing room is illuminated with cool blue and soft gold.

But not… not illuminated quite _enough_. The candles flicker and gutter, the light they emit weak and anaemic. The moonglow is dimmer than it has any right to be, and streetlight does not seem to bleed as far into the room as Jonah is sure it should.

In the spaces left by the failing light, shadows pool. Thick enough to partially obscure the surfaces they coat, turning the furnishings Jonah has become familiar with over the night into a strange and alien landscape. Objects whose forms he was utterly certain of appear to have morphed somehow, their shapes bleeding into the blackness that wells from the hidden corners of the room like ink. The shadows cast across the floor by the furnishings and ornaments are not precisely the shadows Jonah would expect them to cast. Not quite the shapes they should be.

Jonah’s eyes fall on the ever-so-slightly twisted shade cast by a chair, thick black lines almost indistinguishable where they melt into the darkened floor. Before his eyes, the shadow –

It shifts. It _moves_ , a slow and deliberate motion that cannot possibly be attributed to the candle-flame, coiling like a snake across the carpet. Moving towards him, slowly but most certainly towards where he sits on the settee, frozen and dumbly staring.

“Jonah?” Maxwell’s rich voice shocks him out of his stupor, and he darts his eyes up to the other man’s face. His head is inclined in Jonah’s direction, and the gentle smile on his lips – the indulgent smile of an older and wiser man to his young student, perhaps – appears ever so slightly insincere. Darker, a little cruel. “You seem distracted, my friend. Are you certain you wish to stay so late?”

Staring hard at Maxwell’s face, Jonah tries to calm his racing heart. He is certain, utterly certain, that the unnatural motion of these shadows is somehow the doing of his host. That Maxwell is mocking him, or testing him, with such a question. That this man is, as Jonah first suspected, more than he appears.

Were Jonah a different sort, he would be running now for the door, and out into the meagre light of the street. Would Maxwell allow him to flee, he wonders, or would the shifting darkness wind around his legs and tie him down?

Whether it would or not is immaterial, however. Jonah is not a different sort, and he is certainly not going to run from this strange and powerful man, from this obvious display of otherworldly power. Not when there may yet be more to learn from his company.

“I am quite alright,” he hastens to reply, ruthlessly quashing the tremor in the back of his throat. “Please, continue – you mentioned a visit to Norway?”

As the conversation resumes, the animal terror, that had frozen his limbs at the first impossible movement of the shadows, begins slowly to fade. In its place settles a twisting, prickling anticipation; he feels in no immediate danger, but the certainty that there is more impossibility to come thrills him to his bones. The world around him feels both immediate and unreal, vivid and dreamlike.

One of those shadows has curled up the back of the settee – it seems to be moving towards Maxwell, like a root seeking rich soil. In this strange state Jonah finds himself in, he can almost imagine that the shadow has dimension, mass, that it has altered to become an object in itself. Moving as slow as if he really were dreaming, he reaches out to test that theory.

As soon as his fingertips brush against the black shape, Jonah regrets it. The thing is _freezing_ , impossibly bone-chillingly cold, and most worryingly, he can feel the cold travel up his fingers, to his palm. The thing is _pulling_ at him, dragging greedily at his hand, and all Jonah can do is watch as it eats its way up his fingers –

A hand around his wrist, broad and cool – though blessedly warm compared to the icy chill of the shadow. Jonah feels his hand pulled from the grasp of whatever unearthly thing had held him, and warmth rushes painfully back into his fingers. He collapses backwards on the settee, heart pounding in his ears, impossibly loud in the still and quiet room.

“Careful, young man,” Maxwell murmurs, the faint light casting new angles to his handsome face. “Surely you have learned by now to be more cautious about where you put your hands?”

Heat flares in Jonah’s cheeks, prickling unpleasantly at his pride. He glares up at Maxwell, loathing that the stare which has felled so many men is useless against Maxwell’s condescending smirk. The sly layer to the question, the delighted smirk that Maxwell has almost managed to suppress – the man is toying with him, damn him to Hell.

With the bubbling of outrage to fuel him, he twists his hand in Maxwell’s grip, until it is curled around his wrist. Beyond his temper, Jonah is admittedly relieved to find that the texture of the fine wool of Maxwell’s jacket under his fingers is as distinct as would be expected; that the strange sucking grasp of whatever had him captive in that moment has not robbed his skin of life.

Then he uses his grip to pull himself along the settee and towards Maxwell, and stretches up to kiss him, hard, upon the lips.

There is a single moment where Maxwell seems taken aback by Jonah’s advances, and Jonah lets his simmering anger carry him through it. Then Maxwell hums, deep in his throat, and kisses back, his lips moving soft and cool against Jonah’s. One arm curls around Jonah’s waist, strong enough to send a delicious shiver up his spine, and tugs him further towards Maxwell.

Jonah goes easily, throwing one leg over Maxwell’s and straddling his lap. Maxwell is pleasingly solid beneath him, and yet there is none of the animal warmth Jonah has come to cherish from being so close to a man. The body pressed against his is cool to the core. Desperate to drown his unease, Jonah kisses him harder, and earns a deep chuckle that vibrates through his own throat, melting him. Surely, Jonah has enough heat for the pair of them.

“Perhaps I was wrong,” Maxwell purrs when they part. There is something to his voice that sends the soft hairs on Jonah’s arms prickling – some deeper tone laid over the already deep timbre, a resonance Jonah has never heard in a human throat. “You clearly have not a cautious bone in your body.”

“Surely, a little risk is necessary, if one wishes to expand one’s knowledge?” Jonah quips. Maxwell gives another rich chuckle, before snagging him with one broad hand curled around his neck and bringing him in for another kiss.

For a time, Jonah loses himself. Unlike the tender, tentative kisses he has received from his peers, Maxwell kisses like a man, a man assured of his power and skill. His attentions leave Jonah breathless, floating on waves of sweet arousal, only swelling the dreamlike distance that has been plaguing him. His hands map Jonah’s body with luxurious steadiness, as though Maxwell has all the time in the world to learn the shape of Jonah beneath his clothes.

Jonah is just relishing in the soft give of Maxwell’s lip as it slips from between his teeth, when his body is wracked with a sudden shiver. He presses forward, as though Maxwell has any heat to give him, and realises that the ambient temperature of the drawing room has dropped. The air, when he moves away from their shared atmosphere and draws a breath in, is almost icy, and laced with a scent he remembers from the cave system he’d explored once as a younger man. Cold and heavy with earth, a breath of an alien landscape that has never known, nor needed, the sun.

There is no sound from the street, and the room is darker, all the candles burned out so that all illumination comes from the windows – and that light seems faint, faded, only really serving to define the twisting, sliding shadows that surround him on all sides. He remembers the cave again, the moment when his lantern flickered, when for a brief second he was alone as he had never before been, alone and surrounded by purest darkness.

He glances sidelong at Maxwell, still settled comfortably into the settee with one arm snug around Jonah’s hips. _How are you doing that?_ he thinks, but does not ask – he wants to ask, burns with the need to know what exactly is happening around him, but he has a sudden morbid sense that if he opened his mouth now, no sound would come out. That his voice would drop leaden into the blackness of the room, would be swallowed by the crushing stillness that has bled into the fabric of this place.

“The hour is late,” Maxwell says – his voice does not break the silence so much as melt into it, as natural here as it would be unnatural in any other place – “will you come to bed with me?” His hand flexes where it sits just above Jonah’s arse, digging a little into the softness there, evidently enjoying himself. The familiar flush of power that comes from being desired is more reassuring than it perhaps should be, given who is desiring him.

Jonah takes a deep, steadying breath, and on the exhale he sighs out a “Yes.” The word leaves his lips deadened, falling flatly into the motionless air. But it is a word, and upon hearing it Maxwell’s smile widens, bright and not a little predatory, and Jonah feels his face heat even further.

Perhaps, just perhaps, he has bitten off more than he can chew, with this man. Too late to fret about it, at any rate. Jonah will not be turning tail now.

~~~~~

The staircase Maxwell leads him up is illuminated – if the term can be used – by the faintest blue light, emitting from a window with glass that seems somehow misted. As in the drawing room, the slight glow serves less to light the hall, and more to give the shadows that rule this place texture and definition. It is with this light that Jonah sees the movement in the darkness; always just at the corner of his eye, never there when he turns his head to examine it properly.

When they crest the stairs, Maxwell draws Jonah along a darkly-papered corridor, the sole window at its end barely lighting even the floor beneath it. The shade pools even deeper here, thick and endless and somehow _full_.

Rustling fabric, creaking floorboards – Jonah is _certain_ they are being pursued, and utterly uncertain of what pursues them. It could be anyone, any _thing,_ so steeped in shadow that there is no form he can perceive. Maxwell, who must also hear these noises, does not seem troubled by them, so Jonah can assume they are some manifestation of the man’s strange connection to darkness. Whether this means he need not worry about them – well, that is another problem entirely. Nothing touches him, at least, nothing comes closer than just into earshot, leaving him only tense and twitching.

After countless frightened moments, corridor after corridor, Maxwell brings them to a stop in front of a door. He opens it, and gestures with a courtly sweep of Jonah’s arm for him to enter. Try as he might to keep his head, Jonah hesitates.

However dark the corridors, they are at least dimly lit. This room is pitch black, so dark that darkness leaks and pools at the threshold as light would pool at the door to an earthly room; so dark that this darkness seems solid, a physical mass of opaque blackness.

“Go on,” Maxwell says, in that voice that is not a human voice, and damn him to Hell for a fool, Jonah goes.

The moment Maxwell shuts the door is the moment Jonah is certain he goes blind. There is no light, _no_ light, not even the faintest glimmer to taunt his eyes, only the empty black which stretches around him on all sides end everywhere. Worse still, he can hear Maxwell’s receding footsteps as the man moves further into the room – but cannot pinpoint them, no, only enough to know Maxwell is moving away, abandoning him to the gloom.

He had expected _some_ light to become apparent as his eyes adjust to this room – the faintest crack below a shutter, perhaps, or the slightest spill from below the door. Enough to give him some concept of the scale of the place, some notion of his position in it. But the longer he stands stock-still in the gloom, the more he is forced to accept that there is _nothing_. That somehow, a bedchamber in a London townhouse is as perfectly lightless as a depthless cave below the earth.

Paralysed with terror, unable even to say where the door is, Jonah stands in the impenetrable dark and waits. His ears strain for any sound, any movement, and pick up the faintest whisper of… something. Voices? The sound comes from all around him, from every direction, an endless susurration that will not form itself into words no matter how hard Jonah strains. The blackness is alive, is full, and he can perceive none of what is there, what must even now be drawing closer-

A weight upon his arm, and Jonah flinches, a cry of terror wrenching from his lips as he attempts to tear himself away from whatever has captured him. Before he can do so, he is reeled in, another arm coming around his waist as he is held tight against a cool, naked form. Maxwell, only Maxwell, cradles Jonah to him as he shakes and sucks in frantic breaths, reeling with the peerless high of true and mortal terror.

“A little warning!” he gasps out once he is no longer in danger of expiring, laying his spinning head against Maxwell’s shoulder. He can feel the man’s smile where it presses onto his forehead, as he shifts his grip on Jonah from a restraint to a caress.

“But you startled so beautifully,” Maxwell retorts, skimming one hand to Jonah’s waistcoat. He unfastens the buttons with alacrity, slipping it over Jonah’s head and allowing it to fall away into the darkness, before bending to see to Jonah’s shoes. Smallest mercy, while he is down there Maxwell keeps a hand on Jonah’s calf, providing him some slight stability.

Jonah’s clothes fall away from him in pieces, baring his heated skin to the biting chill of the room. He can almost _taste_ Maxwell in front of him when he stands; a tall, powerful shape pressing into his space. Every inch of bared skin feels hypersensitised, straining to pick up any change in air current, any motion – as if his skin is attempting to transform into a host of staring eyes.

So strange, to be nude in absolute darkness. With no eyes to see him, not even to catch a shadowed glimpse, Jonah finds his usual easy confidence in his own handsome figure impossible to grasp, and without it he feels more naked than ever he has. Maxwell’s hands on his bared flesh are as static shocks, each fleeting touch a sting. When the man’s caresses firm and hold him in place with steady pressure, he almost sighs in relief.

Maxwell tugs at his body, gentle guidance with an undeniable strength tucked behind it. Still, Jonah stumbles a little, cursing himself roundly for the weakness. “This way, poppet,” Maxwell purrs. “Just follow my lead.”

“Must I trust you, then?” Jonah mutters, but allows himself to be moved. Each step he takes is uncertain, graceless; without reference to the room around him, he feels utterly lost. Worse still are the noises, still there, and he cannot rightly say whether that soft sigh is the sound of his thighs moving together, or the shifting of Maxwell’s own body, or… or something else entirely.

He could swear that, for a moment, something cool and smooth brushes against his calf, there and gone in a second. The fleeting pressure wrenches a gasp from his lips, muscles spasming with his sudden mortal fright, and Maxwell’s chuckle floats out of the blackness before him.

Finally, after an indeterminable stretch of time, he senses the presence in front of him stop, and lower itself to sitting. Maxwell’s hands remain steady him, sliding from his shoulders to hold his arms, and Jonah finds his own hands straying to Maxwell’s wrists, gripping them tight. A point of contact, an anchor in this blank and endless dark.

“Come here,” Maxwell murmurs, pulling him close, and Jonah feels the press of Maxwell’s knees, the shape of the bed he sits upon. Painfully conscious of the empty space at his back, he scrambles up and onto Maxwell’s lap, the pleasant stretch in his thighs as he straddles the older man almost soothing his unease at the cold, too-smooth slide of the linins over his bare legs. He presses close as he can, chest to chest, and when his nipples brush against soft and rasping hair, he cannot muffle a gasp. Christ but he is _aching_ , and he had barely noticed.

One of the hands – when had they become so oddly smooth and dry, lifeless in some indefinable way? Jonah feels as if he is being touched by a marble effigy instead of a man – trails to the small of his back, urging him to kneel up a little, while another insinuates itself between his legs and finally cups him where he aches. The lightest brush of Maxwell’s palm against his flushed cock makes Jonah flinch, his hips stuttering into what he could swear is no longer human flesh. ~~~~

“So eager,” the voice of Maxwell Rayner croons in his ear, with that resonance that had so enthralled Jonah when first he had detected it now louder, now swelling, now pouring into his ears and turning his thoughts sinuous and slippery. “Such a curious little thing.”

Not to be outdone, Jonah reaches into the darkness before him and finds Maxwell’s belly, soft hair and firm muscle that he traces over with reverence before dipping further. When his hand brushes Maxwell’s cock, the other man sighs, the sound deepening as Jonah encircles its girth, lifting his hips and guiding Maxwell to brush against his core. The stroke of him through Jonah’s wetness and against his cock feels wonderful, a bolt of heat searing through Jonah, and he wastes no time angling Maxwell against his entrance and sinking him inside.

Maxwell is not the most impressive that Jonah has ever taken, but however melting-hot and soaked his cunt, Jonah has had precious little preparation. It _aches_ , knife-sharp as his body cries out at the intrusion, and Jonah hisses through gritted teeth as he forces his flesh to submit to his demands. Once the smooth head is inside him, holding him so painfully open, he expects that the process will be easier – but Christ if the man isn’t just as thick the whole way down, and lowering himself onto the length is a stinging, delicious torture. When he bottoms out, coming to rest flush against Maxwell’s hips with a sensation not unlike being winded, it is all he can do to lay his forehead on Maxwell’s shoulder – noting the texture of the skin beneath him at a remove, lest he panic – and suck in deep, steadying breaths. Maxwell, he realises all of a sudden, is not breathing at all.

“A shame, really,” he mutters into the darkness – fear has ever made Jonah Magnus uncouth, sharp and offensive – “that it is so dark in here, and you without sight. I am told I look quite fine stuck on a cock.”

Maxwell laughs, the vibration shaking through Jonah like an earthquake – Jonah is so rigid with tension, he has no way to move with the shaking and thus must be moved by it. “Oh, my dear boy,” he says when his laughter dies away, “I grant that I have not known you more than an evening, but even with that scant knowledge I can be sure that you are not normally so close-minded. I do not need sight to appreciate you.”

Movement by his head, and that unearthly voice is closer now, close enough that Jonah can almost feel the words twine themselves into a thread and slide into his ear. “Sight is entirely overrated, dear, sweet boy. Besides, it is a little childish that you assume that, since you cannot perceive what is around you, nothing can perceive _you_.”

The moment Jonah understands Maxwell’s words, takes his meaning, he feels something touch him. Touch his exposed and unprotected back. Cool and corporeal and _there_ , a brush against his spine becoming a sinuous and moving presence, laying heavily across his shoulders and moving to coil around his throat.

Jonah freezes, mouth half open. Despite the slight pressure of the thing where it holds the instrument of his breathing in its alien embrace, in that moment he physically cannot draw in air. Maxwell’s hands soothe over his back, caging and comforting him, and Jonah registers that the touch of Maxwell’s skin is of the same quality as whatever has him by the neck.

The thing, the tendril, does not tighten to choke him. It only holds him, soaking up the jittering warmth of his fear-flushed skin. The tip plays over his neck, tracing the architecture beneath with what Jonah cannot help but interpret as a playful curiosity. He remains very still, drawing in only the slightest sips of air, poised in terror as this unseen thing explores him.

As it presses on the rings of cartilage at his trachea, Jonah cannot help a single strangled whimper. The monstrous strength of this entity is apparent in its every motion – it could crush his windpipe with a single flex.

“Hush,” Maxwell croons, and to hear that word come twining out of the darkness sends Jonah shuddering. “You’re in no danger here.”

More touches, light and probing against his back. Once they make contact, each one lays itself against him and runs like a snake over his flesh. They wind along his arms before coiling around them, around his thighs and dig into the muscle, around his waist and stretch up to toy with his breasts, his stone-hard nipples.

Jonah forces his muscles to loosen – with the added effect of dropping him impossibly further onto Maxwell’s length, sending an aching pang through his core – and lets himself lean a little into the tendrils. They move with him, unrestrictive; indeed, when he cautiously rises a little way off Maxwell’s cock, they take his weight, making the movement a little easier. With so little strain on his thighs, Jonah is sure he could ride Maxwell for hours without tiring, and the idea thrills him.

The thrill twists itself into panic a moment later, as another tendril twists out of the darkness to rub gentle and cold against his arsehole. Jonah gasps and freezes in place, clenching tight, and shuddering as the movement tugs at Maxwell’s cock inside him.

“More?” Maxwell asks, and Jonah squirms, the churning mass of arousal and fright stealing his words, his very breath. God, he hasn’t ever-

The tendril pushes a little harder against his arse, presses a little firmer, and Jonah flinches away from it. The drag of the cock inside him as he jerks upwards pulls a moan from his lips, causing Maxwell to laugh, and the tendril only follows him, only presses closer. Its cold tip slips just into the ring of muscle, and Jonah freezes once more.

Maxwell’s voice is redolent with his grin. “Don’t be nervous, poppet. I am certain you can take it.” His hands skate down the small of Jonah’s back to cup his cheeks, parting them with casual possession. The condescension in his tone rankles Jonah – has he not already proven himself? A lesser man would have run out the door at the first sign of the preternatural, and not only has Jonah stayed, he has embraced all that Maxwell has to show him.

Slowly, carefully, he lowers himself down.

Thankfully the tendril edging inside him is slender and improbably smooth, because at first the penetration is nothing but uncomfortable. However, behind the pain there is _something_ , a hot burn that merges with the stretch of the cock inside him. Jonah shifts himself with a little sigh, poised with only a small length inside him and trying to open up for more.

One of Maxwell’s broad fingers strays to pet over his hole, in slow and soothing circles. “Relax,” he murmurs, “just relax. Your body wants to open up, wants to be filled; you simply have to allow it.”

“Mr Rayner, are you calling me a whore?” Jonah asks, pleased that he has managed to inject some degree of arch levity into his voice.

“Are you denying it?” Maxwell retorts, and Jonah huffs ruefully. He tries to take Maxwell’s advice, putting his fear aside and sinking into the notes of pleasure from his body – the pleasant constriction around his limbs and waist, the cock, solid and heavy and wonderfully thick, filling his cunt. He sags a little, and the tendrils holding him take his weight with such ease that he may as well be floating.

The notion makes his head spin – to be weightless and unmoored in such utter darkness, only held in place by these inhuman bonds, by Maxwell’s body pressed to his and Maxwell’s cock buried in him. The utter loss of all control – it is terrifying. It makes him _ache_.

Before he knows it, the tendril is moving deeper inside him, and Jonah shakes at its passage. God, but it does feel good, to be so filled. More and more feeds in, the bands encasing his body sinking him down, and the slide of it past his sensitised rim coupled with the push of Maxwell’s cock against the slick walls of his cunt wrings a tiny, helpless whimper out of him.

As his lips part to gasp and whine, the tendril curled around his neck curls up to rub against his mouth. Finding another space to claim, it slides inside, rubbing heavy against his tongue. Jonah moans helplessly at the pressure, and the tendril surges forward, swelling impossibly until his mouth is filled entirely. As it butts blindly against the back of his throat, Jonah chokes despite himself, going once again rigid. When he attempts to raise his arms in instinctive defence, he finds them held tight in place; all the movement he is capable of is to dig his hands into the unyielding flesh of Maxwell’s back.

“Hush,” Maxwell croons once more, shifting his grip to Jonah’s hips and pulling him down onto his cock, onto the tendril in his arse that has most definitely begun to swell, slowly easing him wider and wider. “Let us give you what you want.”

Jonah attempts a denial, but his voice is smothered utterly by the alien not-flesh filling his mouth. The pathetic muffled cry that escapes seems to delight Maxwell further.

“Hah, don’t deny it. I know you, Jonah Magnus,” Maxwell murmurs into his ear, his cheek brushing gently against Jonah’s. “I have existed for such a very long time, and I have met your kind so often. Wide and staring eyes, drinking in all there is to see, desperate to learn all there is to know, and utter disregard for that fact which all creatures are aware of, deep in their bones – that there are some truths that should never be spoken, some secrets that should never be dragged into the light.”

Jonah shudders at these words, melting helplessly in the face of the power and age that resonates in Maxwell’s unearthly voice. When the tendril in his mouth squirms a little, solid and hefty on his tongue, he finds himself sucking on it. It tastes ever so slightly mineral, and at the movement of his mouth it presses deeper, starting to ease into his throat. This time Jonah is forewarned sufficiently to relax and swallow, allowing it smooth passage. It draws his throat open and sinks inside, heavy and filling and strangely soothing.

“That’s it,” Maxwell praises, as Jonah is stuffed full with aching slowness. One of his fingers strays to rub at Jonah’s cock, already slick with his arousal. His broad finger traces such tender circles that tears prickle at Jonah’s eyes, his hips rocking into the sweet singing pleasure, each shift of his hips a wonderful torment of pressure and friction. By now the tendril sunk in his arse is almost as thick as Maxwell’s cock, and Jonah’s mind reels at being so full.

Pushing himself upwards is difficult – his muscles have turned liquid from the glut of pleasure forced upon him – but the tendrils once again move with him, supporting his movements. They follow him back down, and guide him into the next rocking movement, anticipating the rhythm he wishes to set. With their help, he sets a steady, grinding pace, fucking himself deep. The tendril sunk into his throat simply sits there, a perfect weight, and Jonah can already feel himself drooling a little around it.

Maxwell, face so close to his ear that Jonah is constantly reminded of the absence of his breath, rubs their cheeks together, sighing in contentment as he cradles Jonah in his arms. “Sweet, inquisitive little thing - don’t you want to learn a little more?”

Helpless, floating, Jonah nods, and Maxwell begins to speak.

In high, strange language that Jonah is certain has never been spoken aloud by a mortal man on the face of this world – and yet he understands every word as they teem and burrow into his mind – Maxwell whispers of so many impossible things, horrific secrets hidden all in deepest shadow, knowledge that will never be known. He tells Jonah of the unseen, unseeable matter that weaves into the fabric of all things, teeming and pulsing with the colour of nothingness, the empty lightless void that lurks at the heart of all God’s creation. In the shuddering darkness that Jonah breathes into, the being that speaks from the depths of Maxwell Rayner describes worlds that have never known the touch of light, and the blind things that live and hunt and worship and die there, and sing melodies of night from their obsidian spires. Of the vast and ancient and hungry beings that move in the spaces where no stars shine; of sucking wounds in the fabric of space that stretch and distort and consume light itself.

As Jonah rides him, thighs shifting in their alien harnesses, shaking and helpless, Maxwell tells him the secrets he has related to Robert – ever-ravenous god-abominations formed of pure fear, that slide their unreal tendrils into this world and twist corners of it in their image. He speaks with aching and inhuman reverence of the one he was birthed from, fear of darkness made manifest, the hallowed lightless god that lurks in every shadowed corner and every lost, forgotten place and every moonless night. The straining and shuddering terror of what is unseen, unknown, unknowable.

Jonah does not know when he comes – how many times he comes – shaking apart in the unholy darkness, cradled in the grip of its servant and its creatures, clenching down on the alien masses inside him. His cries are swallowed by the tendril deep in his throat, his limp body moved, unresisting, up and down the lengths impaling him. Robbed of sight, all of Jonah’s world is feeling; the sweet ache in his thighs, the melting heat between his legs where he is held so open, the whispered and awful knowledge Maxwell is pouring into his ear like the freezing water from a black lake deep below the earth, a cavernous depthless pool has never known warmth or light and never will. The choir, that he did not hear begin to chant and yet have been filling the darkness with their unearthly song for all of time, swells and overwhelms all rationality. Jonah weeps as he has not since he was a child, weeps at the battering of blind sensation and the dissolution of all he thought he knew of the world.

When Maxwell comes, finally, spilling cold inside him with a groan that could not have torn itself from any mortal throat, Jonah is finally settled down. He melts into the unyielding clutches of the tendrils, of Maxwell, and sinks into stillness, all thoughts washed clean away. For endless moments he simply exists in the empty, peaceful black.

~~~~~

After God only knows how long, Jonah fades back to consciousness to find himself lying curled on his side in the bed, tucked under heavy covers. The tendrils are gone as if they never were, not even the heated ache of bruises left in their wake. The soreness in his arse is a good indication that he hadn’t imagined the whole affair, and the ache in his cunt is similarly undeniable. Maxwell must have cleaned him, since his thighs are not so sticky as they should be. Even his throat is not as sore as it ought to be.

The state of his mind is… more difficult to catalogue. He feels himself, he is certain he does, but even with the heavy cloud of well-fucked satiety, he is aware of a change. Although he cannot bring Maxwell’s words fully to mind, the images they painted behind his sightless eyes will no doubt haunt his dreams for months, perhaps even years. There is… more, now. More to the universe than he could ever have suspected, even from his own research; more to him. Jonah Magnus will leave this house a changed man, and the notion brings him a bone-deep satisfaction.

It is as he finishes his inventory, that Jonah realises with a start that the world beyond his eyelids is no longer unilluminated. In fact, he can make out a soft, glowing stain.

Jonah snaps his eyes open to find the room lit by an unshuttered window, moonlight bringing faint definition to the bed, the dresser, the washbasin. A normal bedchamber, a little small even – so far from the cavernous and austere space he was half-expecting that he cannot help a shocked little giggle.

His ears detect a soft huff of breath behind him, and Jonah twists onto his other side – wincing a little at the ache between his legs – to see Maxwell sitting up at the headboard. He has a book open on his lap, and while at first Jonah is unsure what to make of that, when he examines it he can make out how deeply the letters are embossed into the page, such that one could read them easily with a finger. A time-consuming form of reading, Jonah is sure, and most probably expensive to arrange, but it must be preferable to having no books at all.

“Awake, then?” Maxwell asks, voice still dragging slightly in that unearthly manner – but only slightly. Whatever impossible resonance filled Jonah’s ears and mind during their intercourse has faded, tucked back away in the human form of Maxwell Rayner. “How are you feeling?”

“Sore,” Jonah grumbles, but his heart is not in it. “Sated,” he continues, grateful that Maxwell cannot see the blush staining his cheeks.

“I am glad,” Maxwell replies, and the look he gives Jonah is strangely softened. To his own surprise, Jonah does not find himself discomforted by it.

He _likes_ Maxwell Rayner – which for Jonah, who tolerates few of his fellows and likes fewer is rather remarkable.

Maxwell shifts a little to face him – for Jonah’s benefit, surely, not his own, and Jonah would be lying if he said the gesture didn’t bring him some measure of fondness. “Would you be opposed to staying the night? You seem comfortable, it would be a shame to disturb you further.”

Jonah considers. One the one hand, yes, he is comfortable. The room may be slightly too cool for early autumn, but the covers are warm enough to be pleasant, and he is the sort of tired that results from a period of deeply satisfying exertion. It would be quite lovely, to allow his eyes to fall closed once more and dip into slumber. It has been far too long since he shared a bed, and as wonderful as independence is, Jonah finds the idea of doing so again more than a little pleasing.

Except, of course, that the man he would be sharing the bed with is an entity of shadow and fear, a being older than Jonah can yet comprehend and quite beyond his understanding – for the moment, at least. To let his guard so completely down in front of such a man once is… understandable, in Jonah’s opinion, given the circumstances. Nothing gained without a little risk. To do so a second time, when all that could be gained had been – now, that would be foolish. Jonah has not survived so long by dint of foolishness.

“My apologies, but I am afraid that I will be attending a lecture at a rather early hour tomorrow,” he says smoothly. “Earlier than is seemly, in my opinion, and I should hate to have to hurry back to my lodgings at some ungodly hour, or to attend in tonight’s clothes.” It is not a lie, not truly – Jonah does intent to see a lecture at the Royal Society, and the hour the aforementioned lecture is scheduled for is as eccentric as the gentleman who would be giving it. But Jonah has ever been an early riser, and to leave Maxwell’s townhouse at such an hour that he could stop by his rooms before attending would be no true inconvenience.

Maxwell nods, murmurs “Of course,” in a tone that seems agreeable enough, but there is now a tightness to his countenance that Jonah does not much like. It seems he has offended the man with his refusal, and that knowledge unsettles him, even as he hauls himself out of the bed and begins, painfully, to dress. His clothes have not fared well on the floor, but that cannot be helped, and it would not be the first time Jonah has found his way home in the early hours, in crumpled dress.

As he dresses, Maxwell also rises from the bed. Jonah is unashamed to admit that he turns and takes a moment to drink in the sight of his bed-partner’s nude form, now that he can actually see it. Maxwell cuts a trim figure, not particularly broad for his height but obviously strong, all solid muscle and scant fat. His dark skin gleams blue in the moon’s scant glow, and as lovely a picture as it makes, it seems somehow unnatural for Maxwell to be outlined in any light. Jonah is struck by the fanciful notion that here is not a being that should be illuminated.

Soon Jonah is put back together and Maxwell has dressed a little, trousers and an undershirt. “I will call my carriage around,” Maxwell tells him, any hint of his previous upset gone from his voice, so when he waves an arm for Jonah to proceed him out of the room, Jonah does so without much apprehension.

The corridors he and Maxwell walk down are much the same as they were; scantly lit and full of shadows. The darkness is still moving, ever so slightly, in the corner of his eyes, but the motion no longer feels predatory – simply _alive_. One brushes his ankle as they descend the staircase, and Jonah does not even flinch; this touch does not seem like an attack, or some cruel game. More like a goodbye.

When Maxwell opens the front door for him, Jonah sees a black-painted carriage already drawn up outside the house. By now he knows better than to question such things, and surely he can trust that having allowed Jonah to spend this long in his company, Maxwell will not now send him to his death by a supernatural driver.

Stepping over the threshold and onto Maxwell’s front step feels strangely monumental, for such an easy motion. And yet when it is done, the thrumming tension that Jonah has been subject to since, perhaps, the evening began, leaves him.

“We’ll see each other again, I trust,” he says, loathing the uncertainty that curdles in his gut. Loathing how relieved he feels when Maxwell nods.

“I should hope so,” Maxwell replies, a very human tone in his deep voice, that Jonah believes he can identify as fondness. “You are a fascinating man, Jonah Magnus.” Jonah once again gives thanks for the man’s blindness, and wishes he did not blush quite so easily.

“In fact,” Maxwell continues, “I will be hosting a smaller, more intimate gathering of friends this coming Friday. Robert will be in attendance, and a few gentlemen whose acquaintance I believe would benefit your research.” There is most certainly a double entendre in that sentence, judging by the slight pull on the corner of Maxwell’s mouth. “I would be delighted to host you again.”

“And I will be delighted to attend,” Jonah replies. He casts his eyes once more over Maxwell’s handsome figure, gaze flitting to the curling shadows he can make out in the hallway behind him. After so long in their company, he cannot help but find them beautiful, in their slow and graceful motion. Regardless, to be out of Maxwell’s shade-filled home, and returned to what he cannot help but conceptualise as _the real world,_ is no little comfort.

Of course, if he interpreted Maxwell’s words correctly, that comfort is an illusion. The shadows may not move outside Maxwell’s domain, but they are ever present.

“Friday, then,” he says, to cover his renewed unease. “And until then, I bid you farewell.”

“Farewell, my dear Jonah,” Maxwell replies. “I wish you pleasant dreams.” His smile at that last is a little cruel, but Jonah does not take it personally.

The journey back to his lodgings in Maxwell’s silent-wheeled carriage is spent in dizzy contemplation. Jonah can actually perceive the knowledge Maxwell had provided settling into his head, weaving into what he knows about the world and finding its place there. When they are about halfway through the journey, the realisation of quite what he has just experienced finally penetrates the last of his fugue, and Jonah finds himself laughing hysterically, slumped in his seat with his head buried in his hands as he shakes in terror, relief, the ecstatic delight of _knowing_.

When he disembarks from the carriage, and watches it glide off through the darkened streets, Jonah hurries up to his rented rooms. Once inside, he stokes the fire he had left banked in the grate back up to roaring brightness, lights every candle heedless of expense or safety. He places them strategically around the room, until he has managed to chase every shadow from every corner. Only when the whole room is warm and aglow does Jonah finally undress once more and climb into bed.

Even then, sleep does not find him before dawn.


End file.
